Puerto Armuelles

Since we are not yet residents of Costa Rica, the immigration law requires that we leave the country for 72 hours every 90 days. My time was just about up, so it was time to hop on a bus to the Panamanian border, walk over Rio Sixaola viia the old railroad bridge, hop another bus to Changuinola and from there catch the bus to David, on the Pacific side of Panama. David is Panama’s second largest city and was our “home away from home” for 3 days. We stayed a the Hotel Occidental this time. In addition to a perfect location across from Cervantes Park, there was air conditioning and a spacious balcony overlooking the Park. We had heard that WiFi was now available - for free - throughout most of Panama - true. On the second day we decided to take a day trip to somewhere new. We picked Puerto Armuelles, a small Pacific coastal town of 25,000 people that is about 60 miles from David. Puerto Armuelles is just 5 miles from the Costa Rican border as the crow flies. For humans it’s a little further, 21 miles to Paseo Canoas. The $3 bus ride from David took about 2-½ hours and brought us through several smaller towns including the border town of Paseo Canoas, which quite frankly looks a lot like many of the US/Mexico border towns.

We arrived at the Malecon, or seaside park, just in time for lunch. Across from the Malecon was a charming little restaurant with patio dining, Restaurant & Pizzaria Don Carlos. We were greeted by the owner, Alberto, son of the late Don Carlos, who spoke perfect English and gave us a little history about the restaurant, the town and the Malecon, even sharing pictures he had taken through the years. For $6 each we enjoyed delicious whole red snapper (pargo entero), with sides.

Puerto Armuelles was once a thriving banana port with a separate deep water port for oil. Yes, oil. I found out from Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puerto_Armuelles,_Chiriqu%C3%AD) that in response to the oil embargo in the 70s, crude oil was shipped by super tankers to Puerto Armuelles where it was loaded onto smaller tankers that would fit through the Panama Canal to cross over to the Atlantic and on to the refineries of Texas and the Gulf Coast. Then in 1982 a pipeline was built crossing from Puerto Armuelles over the mountains to Chiriqui Grande on Panama’s Caribbean coast (the destination of our next trip to Panama). A feasibility study for building a $7 billion refinery in Puerto Armuelles is currently being completed by Occidental. So, the economic future of this little seaport town may be changing in the years ahead.